Well it's been almost a year since I purchased my 2010 WK and I've finally decided it was time to start my own build thread. I have incorporated so many things from others on various forums so it's about time I start sharing.

Not to bore anyone too much but I thought I'd start with a little back story. This is now my second Jeep. My first was a 1998 Cherokee that I picked up from my neighbor back in college and I kept it for a little over 6 years. Last February I was browsing various car sites one night and came across a heck of a deal for a 2010 WK 5.7 in black with all the bells and whistles. The mileage was high (about 60k) but everything else checked out. From what I could gather, the previous owner was a neat freak as the inside was immaculate and the user manual had been filled out at every 3000 miles religiously for oil changes, maintenance, etc (this could have been a cheap trick from the dealer but the car checked out otherwise). I wasn't really looking for anything at the time but I had to check it out. In a manner of 3 days I was able to work them down a few thousand and figure out the finances. Luckily for me this was coming from Nissan dealer where someone had just traded it in (it was on the lot only about 24hours before I saw it). They didn't really know what they had and just wanted to get rid of it. I wasn't able to keep my 98 Cherokee but did end up selling it to a friend so I still get to have it around when I go back home. Everybody wins.

I've put together quite a few mods over the last year, some more significant than others. I've never really been a car person but as an engineer I can take things apart and put them back together pretty well and Google and forums provide most of the detail required. I don't have many pictures of everything that I've done so far but I'll try and trickle a few things in over the coming weeks. Also, I unfortunately haven't been too diligent in taking photos along the way put things together so I won't have any of those. If I do post something and somone wants some more detail/info, just let me know.

Oh and I don't have a catchy name for my build thread or for my Jeep. Accepting suggestions.

Here's the start of a list of some of the mods I've incorporated. I'll try and keep this going as I remember things and do some new stuff in the future. More posts for each mod to follow, eventually...

Here's what I had going on this weekend, cargo area LED light mod (as seen before by others). I was finding that I could never see anything in the cargo area at night and always needed a flashlight to look through my tool bags, not convenient at all.

I picked up 5 meters of LED strip from Amazon for $20 shipped. The install was pretty easy. You just have to pull down the trim at the top in the rear cargo area. It's only attached with 4 clips so they should pop right out with a little leverage. I then cut 3 equal length pieces (1 for each of the 3 separated vent areas) and soldered them together with some spare wire I had sitting around at home. From there it was just a matter of finding the right wires to tap into on the WK. Fortunately there is a wiring harness right there but I didn't have enough play in the wires to give myself something to easly work with (it was also 15 degrees outside when I was doing this so my dexterity wasn't all there). I ended up removing one of the upper trim panels in the corner on the driver's side (it also pops out from only a few clips holding it in place). Here I connected the positive wire to the red wire with a white stripe and the negative to the yellow wire with an orange stripe. This puts the new LED strip set to work with the rest of the interior lights. I might add a switch down by the existing plug like others have done, but for now this is perfect.

Check out the pics below. I should have taken a before shot but I didn't. Also, there was no flash on for any of these but they were taken with my iphone so they didn't turn out that great. They put off a lot of light for only a few small LEDs!